Stellan Skarsgard

“I wanted to be a man who travelled the world to make peace. I didn't realise that most diplomats are megaphones for their governments.”

“Most of my acting in general is about what's going on in the head, and the lines are just something that comes out.”

“My life reads more like Proust than a tabloid.”

“I still live in Sweden. That's my base. When I'm not working, I'm there.”

“My parents were rather unconventional and did not accept rules unless they thought they were defendable. They were atheists when Sweden was a very Christian country.”

“I'm not lazy on set. I'm lazy in the rest of my life.”

“It's fun to play characters with a past, but it's also fun to play any role that is what I would call a 'pressure cooker' kind of character, where the lid is on, and it's left to simmer throughout the movie.”

“You learn a lot from kids.”

“I don't feel ashamed or humiliated when I am naked, but I definitely feel it when I am playing games.”

“I know how to cut meat, yeah. I know how to cook, basically.”

“I'm so full of useless information; I'm the kind of person that collects useless information. I like to know everything!”

“I've made six films for Disney, and they have a clause in their contracts called the morality clause that I've always refused to sign.”

“If you understand each other's way of thinking, you understand what kind of film someone is trying to make, and all the ideas that I come up with will fit into that film.”

“Norway is a small country, about half the size of Sweden, but it has a very good film climate because they have municipal cinemas, so even in the smallest towns you have a cinema that shows art house films from all over the world.”

“I do believe in humanism, and I believe that we should treat each other with respect and care and look after each other. All human beings should have an equal chance to survive in society, and inequality is a big problem in society.”

“I started acting as an amateur when I was a kid, but I wanted to become a diplomat. It was self-centered and weird, but I had this idea of going out in the world and solving conflicts and making the world a better place. But I kept on acting, and eventually, I just dropped out of school and continued acting.”

“When I had kids, I became a better actor. I just stole from them.”

“I'm not always happy when Hollywood does remakes of films, but that's usually when they have a very, very, very good film, and they take away anything controversial from it and make flatter.”

“When you work in Norway, you actually have to have a contract about lunches because Norwegians don't eat lunch normally, so they just throw out a loaf of bread and some coldcuts.”

“The first time I saw Istvan Szabo's 'Mephisto,' I came out and I was in shock. I was shaking.”